This year sure has flown by! We just celebrated the one year anniversary of Drone Strike Force’s launch for Early Access here on Steam. We want to thank each and every one of you for not only your interest in our game, but also the fantastic feedback and thoughts you’ve all given as they’ve helped us shape and refine the game into what we have coming in our upcoming massive update. This is just the beginning of the major changes we have coming to Drone Strike Force in the near future. There are many more changes than this to come, but we’re not quite ready to share all of them yet. Just know - things are about to get crazy. We’ve been toiling away at a new game mode, the new Champions, and a whole slew of other fixes we’re going to talk about here, and that means this massive update is taking a lot longer than originally intended. That said, one thing we’ve been working on should help speed up our communication with you on a more regular basis! We hired the inimitable Lindsey “Insert Cool Name” as our new Community Manager, and she’s going to be helping out on social media, Discord, and here on Steam to make sure we code monkeys keep you more apprised of what’s going on behind the scenes. Lindsey, take it away! Hi everyone! Really happy to be here and to be a part of the team at Odisi working on Drone Strike Force. I’m so excited to be working with the team on this game, and there are so many awesome things coming down the pipeline. I can’t wait to be able to share them with you all! I’ve been a gamer almost my entire life, owning over 15 consoles and spending thousands of hours on hundreds of games over the decades. I can easily say that gaming is baked into my DNA at this point, and that passion is why I love working in this industry and engaging with fellow gamers. I look forward to getting to know you all – and I sincerely hope you enjoy all of the amazing new additions to the game that we’re hard at work on. [h2]Drones Become Champions: [/h2] In the upcoming milestone update, we’ll be converting our existing Drone system to a collection of eight “Champions” - think of these like heroes or classes in other competitive shooters. We showcased the Megadon and the Cyclops in our last update, but in the coming weeks we’ll be deep-diving into each one of the Champions and what makes them unique and how they help their team in the skies. We’ve got a load of new skins for all the Champions coming into the game in the future. Take a look at one in the screenshot below! [img]{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/35021815/1c866e38876dc39a521b0a817861e8f594ca9756.png[/img] [h2]Upload - The New Game Mode:[/h2] Our new game mode, Upload, continues to come along amazingly. So much so that we’re positive it’s going to be the main game mode when we finally unleash it to the world later this year. We teased Upload recently on our Discord channel when we dropped a trailer on YouTube, giving just a taste of what’s to come. This game mode will streamline all matchmaking into one mode for now, as we feel that it’s the most exciting and competitive of all the current modes. [img]{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/35021815/6f2ff009a42a0a570c4f02d5d4f99711b78b228b.png[/img] In addition to Upload, thanks to a lot of iteration and dedication our team has developed an upgraded flight model and a new game mode designed to take full advantage of the aerial aspect of our combat. Strap in, because this is a lot: [b]Upload Details:[/b] [list] [*] There is a Data Cache located at the center of the map. [*] Attackers need to pick it up and bring it to one of two Upload Zones. [*] The longer the Data Cache is in the Upload Zone, the more points the attackers score. [*] Defenders can destroy the Champion carrying the Data Cache to make it fall to the ground. [*] Players on both teams can use the new Grappling Hook [by pressing G] to drag a loose Data Cache towards them - causing havoc for the opposing team. [*] Teams will take turns being Attackers and Defenders. The highest score wins at the end of the match. The number of rounds in each match is still being finalized. [*] Each player has one respawn per round, so tactics and coordination are essential to victory. If a team is completely destroyed during a round, the standing team automatically wins the round. [/list] [img]{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/35021815/3673147d0cc4170986cb395fd5bf46e88cec9338.png[/img] [b]Aerial Combat Improvements:[/b] [list] [*] Check Your Vector - Navigate and Aim with six degrees of freedom to strike foes from above or below. Holding right-click allows you to aim with 360 degrees of motion, but only for a limited time. [*] Watch Those Corners - Collision damage from buildings and other obstacles means pilots have to choose between speed and danger. Skilled pilots will be able to thread their way between buildings at high velocity. [*] Control The Skies - Altitude is a valuable asset; climb when you can and dive when the time is right. [*] Precision Strikes - Enhanced gun play makes accurate pilots all the more dangerous. [/list] [b]More Notes and Changes:[/b] [list] [*] New Map - Fjords, a snow and ice based cityscape with a communications tower at its heart where the Data Cache resides. [*] Refactoring matchmaking - Generating matches is much more flexible now. A Match can be generated from various ongoing skirmishes. You can even earn XP in skirmish mode. No more waiting to play! [*] Hit recognition - Our resident programming wizards have worked hard to update our core systems to improve all hit recognition, making sure all hits are accounted for properly. [*] Drones Go Boom More - Balance has been tweaked to reduce overall HP while damage has been generally increased. [i]Get rekt[/i]. [*] A New Armor System - All Champions now have armor that can regen, giving them a shield overtop their normal health pool. This does not affect their ability to [i]get rekt. [/i] [/list] We hope you’ve enjoyed these details as much as we’ve enjoyed sharing it with you. Be sure to stay tuned because we have so many more surprises and announcements in store as we ramp up to releasing our MASSIVE update to you all. It will be, quite literally, [i]a game changer.[/i] If you aren’t already following us on Twitter, you definitely want to make sure you are as we’ll be sharing a lot of details through there about the Champions, Upload, and so much more!